


Sick Puppy

by fiireside



Category: Arctic Monkeys, Last Shadow Puppets
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 02:55:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20959301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiireside/pseuds/fiireside
Summary: prompt: “you went on a business trip and I missed you so much that I kind of tore up the house in your absence like a dog with separation anxiety... sorry!”





	Sick Puppy

**Author's Note:**

> sorry if they’re a bit out of character - it’s sweet tho so please enjoy!

This was not what Miles expected to return home to.

He’s been away on tour, all around the UK and into Ireland and Europe, having a generally grand time. As he always does. Unfortunately, Alex had not been able to join much – at all – for this leg, but they’d been talking almost every day. The only days they didn’t talk were when their schedules didn’t allow for it, not for lack of trying. Miles knew Alex hasn’t been doing great, but he couldn’t do much while hundreds of miles away, only able to try and comfort him over the phone with his voice and gentle reassurance.

So, honestly, maybe this is what Miles should’ve expected to return home to.

His house is an absolute wreck – lights are on in very scattered areas, his guitar he left behind for Alex is strewn across the couch, looking wildly out of place. The lights are on in his room, but the bed is empty and fully made. There are clothes everywhere, dirty dishes everywhere, scraps of paper and random books everywhere, yet Alex is nowhere to be seen. It’s like a tornado had cut through his flat and taken Alex with it. Miles had come inside almost silently and tip toed around, trying to figure out where he might be – he hoped Alex would be asleep and that he could just brush his teeth and curl into bed with him, given that he’s returned in the dead of night – but he can’t seem to locate Alex.

He whips his head around when he hears a weird noise coming from the kitchen. He lets go of his suitcase and rushes over to the kitchen, stopping dead in his tracks at the sight he finds.

Alex is sat on the floor, back against the cabinets, knees to his chest, crying and shaking, with a shattered mug littering the tile around him.

“Oh my god,” Miles breathes. Alex apparently only just noticed Miles’ presence. He jumps when he looks up and sees a large figure looming over him, and then immediately settles when he realizes who it is.

“Miles,” he gasps, tears running down his flushed face. Miles can’t help but notice Alex is wearing one of his t-shirts. Alex wipes at his eyes and then reaches an arm up towards him. “I— fuck. Come here, please.”

Miles complies instantly, sinking to the floor as close to Alex as possible and pulling him into his arms. Alex just melts against him, gripping the front of Miles’ jumper and sniffling into his shoulder. “Al?” he asks after a second. “What… what happened? Are you hurt?”

Alex just shakes his head furiously and his breath hitches before he starts crying loudly into Miles’ shirt. Miles’ heart breaks with every passing second and every noise that comes out of Alex’s mouth. He feels incredibly useless, here on the kitchen floor at three in the morning, trying to calm down his inexplicably hysterical boyfriend. He rubs at Alex’s back and pulls him as close as he possibly can, burying his nose in Alex’s messy, clearly unwashed hair. The stutters in Alex’s breath and shaky noises emerging from his mouth all splinter Miles’ heart further and further. He clings onto Alex as much as he can – as much as Alex will allow him to – and just hopes he’s helping.

All of the sudden, Alex pushes away from him, moving to slump back against the cabinets again. He wipes at his face and exhales once before turning to face Miles. “Sorry,” he whispers. “Hi. Welcome home. Do you want tea?”

He sounds practically robotic, and Miles knows exactly what’s going on – he’s shutting him out again, burying whatever the fuck just spurred him into this outburst and repressing it deep where Miles will never find it. “No,” he answers, studying Alex’s tear-streaked face with a baffled expression. “No, no, no. No, don’t do that.”

“Do what?” Alex asks innocently, as though he’s unaware of what he’s doing. He’s plastered a blank mask onto his face, and it look so incredibly forced and out of place it makes Miles want to start crying with him.

“Don’t shut me out,” Miles answers firmly, reaching towards Alex and trying to ignore the hurt he feels when Alex flinches away from him. “Please, I want to help. Let me help you this time.”

That seems to reach Alex, as the fake, tiny smile he had on falls and his lip starts quivering. He shuts his eyes and leans his head back. “I missed you,” he says quietly after a moment. Miles reaches towards him again and takes Alex’s hand in both of his own.

“Is that what all this is about? You missed me?” Miles asks jokingly. Alex glares at him.

“No, you twat,” Alex spits back, trying to shake Miles off his arm. Miles won’t let go and instead starts rubbing small circles on the inside of Alex’s wrist. “The… It’s not… Look, I haven’t been feeling well, and I— the mug, and it was your favorite, I know, and I… I’m just—"

“Alex,” Miles interrupts when Alex’s speech speeds up and he looks like he’s about to start crying again. “Baby, seriously, what is it? You’re scaring me.”

“I’m sorry,” he hiccups. “Please, just… I can’t talk right now. Can you— can we just do something? Something else? Anything.”

“Al…”

“I’ll tell you everything later, I promise,” Alex assures him, practically begging for Miles to let it go at this point. “I just— I need to be with you for now.”

“Okay,” Miles agrees uneasily. “Can you stand?”

Alex nods weakly, and so Miles sets about getting them off the floor. He stands first and then uses his grip on Alex’s hand to help get him up, not letting go even once Alex is back on his feet. They just stand there and stare at each other for a moment, Miles moving to brush Alex’s hair behind his ear, slowly refamiliarizing themselves with each other’s faces. “I missed you, too,” Miles whispers as he slips his hand into the hair at the nape of Alex’s neck. This pulls a real smile out of him, though Miles doesn’t get to see it for long, as he leans in and presses his lips to Alex’s.

He feels Alex sink into the kiss as if by reflex, his hands coming up to rest almost tentatively on Miles’ shoulders. Miles smiles and wraps his free hand around Alex’s waist, pulling him closer so their bodies are pressed flush together. Alex’s warm chest against him overwhelms him instantly, sending a rush of heat through him and putting every one of his nerves on high alert. He can’t help but push Alex against the counter, moving so they’re as close as physically possible to one another, deepening the kiss when Alex gasps in response. The feeling of Alex’s tiny waist beneath his arm and his hair in his fingers, his breath hitting his face and hands moving to hold onto Miles’ neck all wake something in him he hadn’t even realized had gone dormant while they’d been apart. Their lips move together slowly and softly and easily for what feels like an eternity, and Miles never wants it to end.

Alex is the one to pull back first. He doesn’t go far, letting his forehead rest against Miles’ and breathing heavily against his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he says again, so quietly Miles can barely hear him. “I feel like a fucking puppy with separation anxiety.”

Miles only laughs, moving to wrap both his arms around Alex’s waist and squeeze him tightly. Alex’s arms go tight around his shoulders and he buries his face in Miles’ neck, and for a long moment the two of them just stand there holding each other, ignoring the mess at their feet and all around them.

Miles breaks the silence. “Are you okay?”

Alex nods against his shoulder. “Yeah,” he says, leaning back and wiping fresh tears out of his eyes, prompting another sharp twinge to go through Miles’ heart. “I really didn’t want you to see me like this.”

“Hey,” Miles starts sternly. He cups Alex’s face in his hands, thumbs brushing the tops of his cheeks and forcing Alex to look him in the eyes. “I’m here for you, Alex, you know that, right? I’m here to help you, but you have to let me – I can only do so much if you push me away.”

Alex just stares at Miles, mesmerized, with a hazy glaze over his eyes that has nothing to do with the fact he had been crying. Miles is about to keep going, but then Alex starts talking. “I love you,” he says so gently it makes Miles’ heart skip a beat.

“I love you, too,” Miles says back, hoping he’s conveying just how much he means those words to Alex. He drops his hands to Alex’s shoulders. “Here— we should clean up at least a bit. What was it you said about my favorite mug?”

“Um,” Alex mumbles, anxiously running a hand through his hair. “I… well, I was trying to use it for tea, but I accidentally knocked it off the counter when I was reaching for something else, and… I know it was your favorite, I thought you’d be really upset with me.”

“Alex,” he says gently. “It’s just a mug. Okay? It’s fine. Please don’t beat yourself up over it.”

Alex nods. Miles gently lets go of him to find a broom and sweep up the shards of ceramic on the floor – he doesn’t have the stamina to clean the whole house right now, but he figures they should at least get this under control before they go to bed. Alex just stands and watches him when he empties the dustpan into the trash and starts working on the dishes in the sink.

“Miles,” Alex says out of nowhere. Miles’ head shoots up from where he’d been looking previously into the dishwasher.

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry I made such a mess of your house,” he continues, apologizing for what seems like the thousandth time.

Miles just chuckles, closing the dishwasher and taking Alex’s hands in his own. “It’s alright,” he says sincerely. Alex smiles a tiny bit. “Are you able to tell me what was going on now?”

Alex blinks at him, once, twice, before nodding slightly and taking a deep breath. “You can’t… don’t make fun of me.”

“I would never—”

“I really missed you,” Alex cuts him off. “I’ve been feeling really poorly, and… and I never have really told you, but every time my head gets worse, I spiral… a–about you. About you leaving me, getting bored of me, getting tired of how… how needy I can be, and… I kept spending all my days here, convinced when you got back you’d leave me because I’m too much of a burden, and I— I wanted to, like, absorb what I could before… but it’s your home, and everything smells like you and reminds me of you and _is_ you, and it just sort of became a cave for me. Like. It got a little out of hand. I really was going to try and tidy up and bake you something to welcome you home, but then the mug happened, and I just lost it, thinking you’d come in and see the whole mess and your favorite mug broken on the floor and you’d think I’m pathetic for not being able to keep my own fucking brain together, or careless for how I’ve treated your apartment and… I couldn’t—”

“Oh, babe,” Miles stops him when he can’t bear to hear anymore. “Alex, I wouldn’t… I love you so much, yeah? I never want to leave you. You’re my favorite person in the world, and I’ve wanted nothing more these last months than to come home and be with you. You’re so important to me, Al – I could never stop loving you.”

“Yeah,” Alex breathes, looking down and picking at one of his nails. “I know it’s clingy and desperate of me to be like th—”

“No, hey,” Miles interrupts. “Stop that. You aren’t desperate or pathetic or clingy – you just… we love each other. What we have is really special, and it’s only natural you’d miss that while we’re apart – I miss you so much every time one of us is gone off on tour that sometimes I literally can’t stand it. There's always this void... please, Al, there’s nothing wrong with how you’ve been feeling; the missing me or the depression flare-up. And we can always clean up the dishes and put books back on the shelves. I’m the messy one between us anyways, you know I’m not going to be upset about that. You’re what matters to me, alright?”

Alex nods, letting his eyes flutter shut. Miles moves towards him slowly to wrap his arms around him again, relieved when Alex doesn’t push away and instead just wraps his arms around Miles the same way. “Alright,” he says into Miles’ shirt. “Thank you.”

“Always,” Miles says into Alex’s ear, pressing a kiss to the side of his head and tightening his arms around him. “Let’s get some sleep, okay? We can clean and talk more tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Alex agrees, feeling more tired with every passing second he spends in Miles’ arms. They make their way towards Miles’ room slowly, not letting go of each other for a second, turning off lights behind them and clearing a path so neither of them trip and fall if they get up again in the night. Once they make it to Miles’ bed, Miles strips himself of everything but his briefs and pulls on the silk pajamas Alex recently gifted him, sliding under the duvet to find Alex already there and waiting. Miles just reaches and pulls Alex against his chest, flicking off the light and carding his fingers through Alex’s hair.

“I’m glad you’re home,” Alex whispers into Miles’ collarbone as his fingers run lightly up and down the side of Miles’ ribs beneath his shirt.

“Me too,” Miles whispers back. “I love you, Alex – you could’ve burned my apartment to the ground and that wouldn’t change.”

Alex giggles, and the sound warms Miles from the inside out. “Good to know for next time.”

Miles just smiles, tracing patterns on Alex’s back and holding him close. Alex is asleep before Miles can even say goodnight, which Miles is honestly glad to see – it was clear Alex needed to properly rest up. Miles had never seen him so upset before, and he never wants to see him that upset again. Miles will do whatever he can to make Alex feel better and more secure in Miles’ pure adoration for him. He’s already thinking up a plan for tomorrow; they’ll wake up slowly, maybe make breakfast, or maybe go out for a treat, sort out the laundry scattered around and put all the books and dishes away. Maybe they’ll watch a film, or fuck around on their guitars, or even have sex if Alex is in the mood – but most importantly just spend plenty of time in each other’s company. Whatever it takes for Alex to know Miles doesn’t want to be anywhere else.

Miles would gladly come home to a wrecked apartment every time as long as it meant coming home to Alex.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading!


End file.
